


From Night to Break of Dawn

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Hair Dyeing, Hair Kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16620785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: “Why does it look like you murdered someone in our bathroom?”





	From Night to Break of Dawn

 

“Why does it look like you murdered someone in our bathroom?”

Gwaine knows the answer, abstractly. He’s had his fair share of fun colored hair, so he is well aware what the aftermath of a home-dye looks like. But his hair is currently a beautiful aqua shade and also he paid stupid money for someone else not to butcher his beautiful locks.

But the tub he shares with Merlin is splattered with red all up the walls and coating the basin like a really unfortunate abstract canvas. There’s no answer, and Gwaine is torn between trying to clean the mess up and forfeiting his safety deposit. There’s not enough bleach in the world to get the porcelain pristine again. (There is, but he’s lazy.)

What bothers him the most is that he can’t place the color. It’s definitely some shade of red, but it’s not a fire red, or a rosey red, or even a gemstone red. He abandons the mystery to find Merlin, who by now should be hovering in Gwaine’s space to complain about Arthur and chemistry projects.

They have a routine and it doesn’t involve potential murder scenes.

He strolls into the sitting room, but the t.v. is off and there’s no tea cooling in an ugly mug. So he strolls into the kitchen, but nothing is burning and no music is playing. Gwaine frowns.

“Merls? Love?” Gwaine isn’t superstitious, and while he doesn’t know from experience he is quite sure that the staining on the tub wasn’t blood. Ninety-nine percent. Well, no, eighty-two. Lighting is bad in there because neither of them can be arsed to change a lightbulb.

He knocks on the bedroom door, and is rewarded with some kind of shuffling. He cracks the door open the lights are off and all he can see is a lump under their quilt. “Please tell me I’m not going to have to avenge your brutal murder because this ass won’t last in prison.”

All he gets for his clever quip is a sniffle and Gwaine frowns and slips into the room. “Let me see, love.”

“No.”

Gwaine flicks on the lights and tugs at the quilt. “Merls. Sit up and let me see. I’m sure it’s not so bad.”

Merlin sighs heavily. “Close your eyes.”

Gwaine snorts. “No.”

Merlin pulls the cover over his head tighter and Gwaine shifts. “Oh, alright.”

He shuts his eyes and he can hear the sounds of Merlin sitting up, of the bedding falling to the floor. He can feel the heat of Merlin closing in on him, so he doesn’t start when two hands cover his eyes. “They’re already shut.”

“And they’ll stay that way until I’m ready.”

They do stay shut for a long time. Gwaine counts Merlin’s breaths, counts his own heartbeat, counts the twitches in his left eyes and Merlin’s fingers and the branches touching the window and any noise he can until he’s had enough. He reaches up and gently, so gently pries Merlin’s fingers back. “I am going to open them now.”

He doesn’t wait for a response.

Merlin’s hair has always been something Gwaine was fond of. It wasn’t straight, wasn’t curly, wasn’t even quite wavy. It was just this turbulent cloud of dark tar that he had a tendency to bury his hands in when they made love. He liked the inky blackness of the soft strands. Now he can do nothing more than stare at the mop on Merlin’s head.

Merlin’s eyes well up. “Oh God, you hate it.”

“Oh love, I really really don’t.” Gwaine isn’t an artist; doesn’t know the subtleties of shades of color. So he can’t exactly describe the color of Merlin’s fluff. It’s red, but it’s more than red. It’s dark and there are possible hints of purple and it looks like when the sky is angry and the clouds are fast and it’s alive on Merlin’s head, highlighting the flush of his cheeks, the plum of his lips, the pale of his skin.

Merlin looks as though he is going to say something, to argue, but Gwaine shoves forward and locks his hands into the sky-burn storm-cloud that used to be black. The hair is soft, so soft Gwaine knows Merlin has borrowed his conditioner but he doesn’t care as he runs his hands through the strands trying to figure out every shade of red, purple, streaks of uncolored black. It’s a mess of a dye job, but Merlin makes it work.

“I’m sorry.”

Gwaine shakes his head and kisses him, hard and fast. “I love it, but why?”

Merlin flushes so that his face matches the brightest of his streaks. “Because.”

Gwaine rolls his eyes. “That isn’t an answer, love.”

Merlin shrugs. “Because of you.”

It explains nothing and it explains everything and even though Merlin’s hair is still bleeding onto their sheets, will be for days, Gwaine lays him on his back. He doesn’t remove his hands from Merlin’s hair, holds tight as he thrust into him and leaves bruises against his neck.

He’s strokes the strange color as he comes, as they shower together, as they’re falling asleep. “My beautiful stormcloud. You’ve shifted from from night, to break of dawn.”

  
  



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